“Thank you, Benjamin, but I assure you that my upgrades make me much smarter than him,” Gerdie said. “He won’t fool me again.”
Heathcliff chuckled but said nothing.
The two of them got to work. She was impressed with his theory but quickly realized that the average person—even with a brilliant brain—couldn’t do the math to make such a machine work. With a team of a hundred scientists she assembled an equation that spanned fifty chalkboards. When they ran out of room, they used the tiles on the walls.
Heathcliff built and tore apart a dozen different versions of his atomic harpoon. Each version lacked some combination of power, output, and stability, and each failure sent him into a rage. He shouted at everyone, especially his goon, whose skin was still scarred and blistered from the bug attack. The man’s head was wrapped in gauze and he clearly needed to be in bed resting, but he said his place was by his boss’s side—even if all he did was fetch milk shakes and cheeseburgers for Heathcliff.
Remembering Benjamin’s warning, Gerdie kept a wary eye on Heathcliff. Still, she couldn’t help but admire his ideas. The two former members of NERDS stayed up late assembling the final version of the device they hoped would save the multiverse.
“So why are you doing this?” she finally asked him when most of the scientists were helping themselves to their fourth, fifth, and sixth cups of coffee. “They tell me you want to take over the world.”
“There needs to be a world for me to take over,” Heathcliff said.
“And when it’s done and the world is safe?”
“My next plan to conquer this terrible little dirt ball will begin,” he said without hesitation. “Oh, you look surprised. You think that I want to rule this world to crush it under my shoe? No. I want to make it a better place for people like us, Gerdie. Our whole lives we’ve been tormented by popular kids and bullies. Look at you! Your own family abused you so much you took drastic medical action. They drove you to create an all-new version of yourself. Does that seem right?”
“No,” Gerdie whispered.
“I want to change things so no one will ever feel that way again.”
“We’re nerds, Screwball. We can’t change that,” Gerdie said.
“That’s where you are wrong, Mathlete! We are special, and we are better than those around us. We should be held up as beacons of hope instead of having to hide in bathrooms and run home after school. That’s what I want for this world.”
“And an army of slaves that do all of your bidding,” Gerdie added.
“Well, of course! Who doesn’t want an army of slaves?” he said.
Gerdie turned the final screw in the device and took a step back. Before her were two identical atomic harpoons, which were squat metal devices with straps to wear like a backpack, and her sparkly pink bridge device. Her head spun as she double-checked her equations for any possible errors. But there was nothing to worry about. The machines would work. “We’re going to save the multiverse, Heathcliff.”
The gap-toothed boy nodded. “Of course we are. The world gives us wedgies and purple-murples, but when it comes to saving the human race, they always turn to the nerds.”
The hours it took assembling the atomic harpoon were the hardest of Screwball’s life. Not only did he have to be on his best behavior, putting aside his plots for chaos and destruction, but he had to smile … a lot. He grinned like an idiot to keep everyone thinking he was someone worthy of their trust, showing off the huge gap where his front teeth used to be. The relief he felt when his machines were complete was quickly replaced by eagerness for the moment when his former teammates would realize they had all been duped.
“When we step through the bridge device into the other Earth, we’ll send you a signal,” Screwball said, barely containing his glee. “Once you get it, let five seconds pass and then turn on your harpoon. The beams will reel us back into our proper place. When ten minutes are up, the harpoons should have done their job and Gerdie and I will jump back into this world.”
“And we’ll destroy your inventions once and for all,” Pufferfish said.
“Sure, sure. Just don’t tamper with any of the buttons,” Heathcliff said. “They’re very sensitive, and if you mess with them, I could be stuck in some parallel world forever.”
“We’ll avoid the temptation,” Jackson said.
“All right, so who wants to save the universe?” Duncan said. “Gerdie, if you would be so kind.”
“I’ve programmed the bridge device to find a world similar to this one,” Heathcliff said, tapping some buttons on the machine Gerdie wore on her wrist. “I think we can all agree that the last thing we need is to end up on a planet full of talking bugs, or worse.”
Heathcliff watched Gerdie press the activation button. He had never actually seen the bridge device in action. It was quite glorious to experience its raw power. The ball of lightning grew and grew, as did his pride. He was truly of a superior intellect—if only he had time to reflect on his genius! But he had to get about the business at hand. He hefted one of the two atomic harpoons onto his back and turned to his former teammates.
“Remember, wait for the signal!” he shouted over the noise. Then he and Gerdie stepped through the portal.
There was a flash, and when his eyes adjusted he could see they had entered a Playground that was identical to the one on their own Earth. Everything, from the tiles on the ceiling to the scientists’ workspaces, was exactly the same.
“It’s just like ours,” Gerdie said.
“So it seems,” Heathcliff replied as he set the atomic harpoon on the floor right in front of the portal. The machine was shaped like a gigantic telescope pointing back into their world. Gerdie joined him in pushing buttons and calibrated sensors. Soon the harpoon was ready to do its job.
“Send the signal!” he shouted, but what he was thinking was, “You are a fool!” Still, with his plan’s success only moments away, he held his tongue.
Gerdie, none the wiser, pushed the transmission button, counted to five, and then pushed the activation button. The machine began to hum and glow as radiation blasted into the gaping white hole in space.
“It’s working!” Gerdie said. “Now all we have to do is wait ten minutes and step back through.”
Heathcliff hated when people stated the obvious. What would she declare next? The sky is blue? Water is wet? Screwball was dangerously handsome? Duh! Why was he always surrounded by simpletons? At least his troubles would soon be over.
While Gerdie watched the amazing machine, he took his chance. He ran toward the upgrade room. As he had hoped, it was identical to the one on his Earth. He pushed a button on the podium in the center of the room and said, “I want my upgrades.”
That was when Gerdie appeared in the doorway.
“You’re here to get your teeth,” Gerdie gasped. “This whole thing—giving me the number for the equation, getting the team to give me back my upgrades, building these machines and risking the world—it’s all for your stupid teeth!”
“The teeth are not stupid!” Heathcliff screamed. “They give me power. They make me special. They are the key to my destiny.”
“You said you wanted to change the world for the better, but you don’t care about the world. You nearly destroyed it!”Gerdie said.
“Oh, Mathlete, for once you are not using your brain. I have no intention of causing the multiverse to end in a multi-car pileup on the freeway. How will I be able to rule it all if it’s been destroyed?”
“Where are this world’s NERDS?” she asked. “They have to stop you.”
“I carefully scanned for a world where everyone had been abducted by an alien race,” he said. “There’s no one here!”
Then the door to the upgrade room slammed shut, locking Gerdie out.
A slab rose out of the floor behind Heathcliff. Straps wrapped around his hands and feet. Then he was tilted upward so that he was parallel with the floor.